Crusaders behind women empowerment in India

Rani Lakshmi Bai

Though women of India are not at par with her counterpart in Western world but she is struggling hard to make her mark in men’s world. We can count on certain names from the British India where women put the example of extraordinary bravery which even men might not be able to show. Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi was the one such woman. She was the one who put even British rulers to shame with her extraordinary feats in battle. She fought for her kingdom, which Dalhousie, British Governor General, had unlawfully annexed with vicious law of ‘Doctrine of Lapse’. She was in a true sense the leader of uprising of 1857.

The roots of the Indian women’s movement go back to the nineteenth century male social reformers who took up issues concerning women and started women’s organizations. Women started forming their own organization from the end of the nineteenth century first at the local and then at the national level. In the years before independence, the two main issues they took up were political rights and reform of personal laws. Women’s participation in the freedom struggle broadened the base of the women’s movement.

There are certain men who took the cause of women in India. There have been social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Swami Vivekanand, Jyothirao Phule, Swami Dayananda Saraswati who crusaded and helped women to gain a respectful status in Indian society.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy

Born on 22nd may 1772 he was the torchbearer of social reforms for the women and the first modern man of India. He was strictly against the evils prevalent in society in his time. In 1815, Raja Ram Mohan Roy formed Atmiya Sabha. Atmiya Sabha tried to initiate social and religious reforms in the society. Raja Ram Mohan Roy campaigned for rights for women, including the right for widows to remarry, and the right for women to hold property. He actively opposed Sati system and the practice of polygamy.

Raja Rammohan Roy

In 1811, Roy witnessed his brother's widow being burned alive on her husband's funeral pyre. Three years later, he retired and concentrated on campaigning against the practice of women dying as Sati. Raja Rammohan Roy was the first Indian to protest against this custom. In spite of protests from orthodox Hindus, he carried on his crusade against the custom. Finally, he won the cause when Lord William Bentick, the Governor General of India passed a law in 1829 abolishing the custom of Sati. According to this law the custom of Sati became illegal and punishable as culpable homicide. Raja Rammohan Roy also opposed child-marriage and supported widow remarriage.

Ram Mohan Roy also did great work in the field of women education. Raja Rammohan Roy supported Western education, including learning of English and the knowledge of science and philosophy. He, along with David Hare, a missionary, founded schools to impart English education to Indian children. He developed the Hindu College which finally developed into the Presidency College in Calcutta. He was against child marriage and favored widow remarriage. He himself married a widow thus setting the example for the whole society. Along with Dwarka Nath Tagore he founded “Brahmo Samaj” in 1830 for the reform of Indian society and emancipation of women.

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar

Vidyasagar was born on 26th September, 1820, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was popularly known as Vidyasagar, which means sea of knowledge. Testifying to his name he was truly the sea of knowledge. He was a pillar of social reform movement of Bengal in 19th century. He widely read ancient Hindu scriptures and came to know that the gender divide which was prevalent in Bengal was not encoded in our ancient texts instead it is the politics to keep women subordinate to men.

Vidysagar realized that there was no place for education of women in the society. With his tireless effort to uplift the status of women in the society, he was able to establish some Girl's schools in different places of Bengal. But there was no good Bengali text book for basic Bengali education. He wrote Bengali books with basic language construct and fundamentals, like, “Barnaparichay”, “Bodhoday”, “Kathamala” etc. and then easy grammar books like “Upakramonika” and “Byakaron Kaumudi”. He also introduced some basic books for Mathematical logic and also translated some masterpieces of Sanskrit and English literature into Bengali. Rabindranath Tagore called him as the father of modern Bengali language.

Vidyasagar took the initiative in proposing and pushing through the Widow Remarriage Act XV of 1856 in India. He also demonstrated that the system of polygamy without restriction was not sanctioned by the ancient Hindu Shastras. With valuable moral support from people like Akshay Kumar Dutta, Vidyasagar introduced the practice of widow remarriages to mainstream Hindu society. There was strong protest from the upper class and orthodox people of the society. He encouraged his son to get married to a widow. Sometimes, he spent money from himself to get widows married. Not withstanding the miserable condition of Hindu widows, he introduced 'Hindu Family Annuity Fund'.

Vidyasagar opened as many as 1200 schools for women in those early days of women education. Vidyasagar was one of the founder members of University of Calcutta which was established in 1857. With help from some friends, in 1859 he established Calcutta Training School. This school was later named as Metropolition Institution and later was converted to a college named after him as Vidyasagar College.

Jyotirao Govindrao Phule

Jyotirao Govindrao Phule

Born on April 11, 1827, Pune, Jyotirao Govindrao Phule was a real philanthropist. Jyotirao Govindrao Phule, was a prominent activist, thinker and social reformer from the Indian state of Maharashtra during the 19th century. He was famously known by the name of Mahatma Jyotiba Phule. During his time, he tried bringing in positive renovations in the spheres of education, agriculture, caste system, social position of women et al. Out of everything that Phule ever did, he’s most remembered for his selfless service to educate women and lower caste people. Phule, after educating his wife Savitribai Phule, opened the first school for girls in India in August 1848. He is also credited with opening first home for widows of the upper caste in 1854 and a home for newborn girl children so that they can be saved from female infanticide. He also encouraged widow-remarriage.

Swami Dayananda Saraswati

Swami Dayananda Saraaswati

He was the founder of Arya Samaj in 1875 and gave a cry, “back to Vedas”. He translated Vedas from Sanskrit to Hindi so that a common man can read it and understand that the Vedic Hindu scriptures gave utmost importance to women. He emphasized for the equal rights for women in every field. He also worked tirelessly towards women education. Swami Dayananda’s creation, the Arya Samaj, unequivocally condemned child marriages and discrimination against women on the grounds that all these lacked Vedic sanction. He tried to change the mindset of people with his Vedic teachings.

Mahatma Gandhi

The social reformers of 19th century laid down the stage for the emancipation of women but it was Mohan Das Karam Chand Gandhi under whose influence these reforms reached masses. He was the one who liberated Indian women from the clutches of ‘Pardah’ and other social evils. He brought them from their confinement and asked them to participate in the struggle for independence. According to him women should be liberated from the slavery of kitchen only then their true potential could be realized. He said that responsibility of household is important for women but it should not be the only one. In fact she should come forward to share the responsibilities of nation.

Mahatma Gandhi

When Gandhi came to the stage of Indian struggle for independence then the average life span of Indian women was 27 years and only 2%women were educated. With the emergence of Gandhi, a new conception of women gradually gained currency. For Gandhi, women were not mere toys in the hands of men, neither their competitors. Women are at par with men, one complementing the other. According to Gandhi, education for women was the need of the time that would ensure their moral development and make them capable of occupying the same platform as that of men.

In Gandhi's views, women can never be considered to be the weaker sex. In fact, women for Gandhi were embodiments of virtues like knowledge, humility, tolerance, sacrifice and faith. These qualities were essential prerequisites for imbibing the virtue of Satyagraha. The capability of enduring endless suffering can be witnessed only in the women, according to the Mahatma. The doctrine of ahimsa as preached by Gandhi incorporates the virtue of suffering as is evident in the women. Therefore, Gandhi envisaged a critical role for women in establishing non-violence. It was due to his efforts that so many women like Sarojini Naidu, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, Aruna Asaf Ali, Sucheta Kriplani and Rajkumari Amrit Kaur came forward.

He spread the message of equality of the gender to the masses and criticized the desire of Indian people to have male child instead of a female. Gandhi was strictly against the child marriage and favored widow remarriage. He urged the youth to come forward and accept young widows as their life partner. He said that the girls are also capable of everything boys can do but the need of the time is to give them opportunities so that they can prove themselves. It was mainly due to his efforts that when India got independence ‘right to vote’ came naturally to Indian women whereas in other developed nations like England and America women got this right very late and that too after lot of protest.

Women protest in Bombay,1930

There would have been no women’s empowerment in India if Indian men in the nineteenth century had not been concerned with modernizing women’s roles. They focused on certain issues such as sati, child marriage, condition of widows, education, etc, because they saw the world through the prism of their own class and caste. Their efforts led to bringing women of their own families into the new world created by colonial rule. Women came out and created a space for themselves. They started organizations of their own, first at the local, then at the national level. They were motivated by liberal feminist ideas and the belief that education, granting of political rights, and legislative reforms would improve women’s position. They fought for the country’s freedom and believed that independence from foreign rule would remove obstacles in women marching forward. In the second phase, the women’s movement was more radical and challenged patriarchy.